Optimum spacing of woodcutters

[The_King]

Hi all,

I spent a lot of time searching on the forum but could not find a clear answer to the question I had in mind. My question is: "What is the optimum tile spacing between two woodcutter's huts in order to have optimum tree plantation and cutting?"

[Krom]

This is easy to test with MapEd.

Create a test map with different spacings and see how it affects number of trunks after 120min. Create big map and place several players with different layouts. Use F11 panel and x300 speedup. Then compare resulting wares charts.

[The_King]

Thanks for the reply Krom.

I did a test with 12 players. The number of the player shows the spacing between the woodcutters. The woodcutters had absolutely free space to plant trees everywhere around them with no other buildings in the way up to a distance of 9 tiles.

I found that it makes no difference whether you have 1 space between the woodcutters or more; the production is the same! They produced an average of 180 tree trunks in 120 minutes. In fact, I observed that if you have more than 4 space between the woodcutters, the average trunks in the storehouse after 120 minutes was around 177-178 - although I think that is just because the woodcutters had to walk longer distance to the Inn to eat food.

I will do more tests with restricting the planting area for the woodcutters by making buildings around them so they have less space to plant trees. Lets see how the production varies with spacing then.

[Krom]

How many woodcutters did you put together?
Maybe 2 are not enough to stall each other, but 4 or 9 will be ?

I'm eager to see your results!

[Ben]

It would also be worth checking how increasing the number of cutters in small spaces affects production. For example, in real situations you usually don't have clear space for woodcutters. Try placing a lake on one side of a cutter and see how productive he is when he only has half the space. Then increase the amount of cutters to see the production difference.

[The_King]

How many woodcutters did you put together?
Maybe 2 are not enough to stall each other, but 4 or 9 will be ?

I'm eager to see your results!

Good point. I've tested it with different combinations and will post the results here in a few minutes.

It would also be worth checking how increasing the number of cutters in small spaces affects production. For example, in real situations you usually don't have clear space for woodcutters. Try placing a lake on one side of a cutter and see how productive he is when he only has half the space. Then increase the amount of cutters to see the production difference.

Good idea Ben. I was already planning on that as my next step. I will do those simulations on the weekend I think. Very busy these days.

[The_King]

Ok here are the results of the "free plantation" simulation.

Important information about the results:
1. The woodcutters have no obstruction to plantation of trees. They have absolutely free area for planting trees.
2. I used two styles of placement for woodcutters. "Line style" and "Pair Style". In Line Style all the woodcutters are placed in one horizontal line with one road. In Pair Style the woodcutters are placed in two parallel lines with two roads as shown in the picture below. The "spacing" in this case refers to the inter-pair spacing i.e. spacing from 1 pair to the next pair in horizontal direction. In vertical direction they are always 1 tile distant i.e. only the road.
3. There is some statistical variation in the results. In every simulation I had one standard sample where I have only 1 woodcutter. Even he produced different results in every repetition: varying from 87-91. I think this statistical variation will get broader as the number of woodcutters is increased. So for getting a very reliable result, one must repeat the simulation many times (e.g. 10 times) and then calculate the average. I don't have time to do that so I have only taken one measurement. For this purpose, it is safe to say that for every 1 woodcutter added the variation of total trunks collected will increase by ±2. For example the total trunks collected by 8 woodcutters can vary between repetitions by 16 trunks in the worst case - normally it will be less.

Results:
1. Pair Style is the best way to put woodcutters. It saves space and has absolutely no effect on tree production efficiency up to 5 woodcutters.
2. I was very surprised to see that up to 5 woodcutters can work in Pair Style with only 1 spacing and still have optimum tree production provided they have free plantation area with nothing blocking it. There is negligible improvement by increasing the distance between 5 woodcutters. For 6 woodcutters, optimum spacing is 2 and very little improvement can be gained by increasing the spacing more than 2. For 7 woodcutters the optimum spacing is 3. For 8 woodcutters the optimum spacing is 5.

Hope this helps . I will test more configurations in the near future and post more results here. My next step is to check the optimum spacing when free plantation area is not available.

Here is the data. The number of tree trunks produced in 120 minutes:

[Tiank]

Wow, I'm really, REALLY surprised by the result as well! Especially the example of 5 woodcutters. I always thought, that the best way is to have at least 2 tiles between cutters... Thanks for doing this!

[thunder]

Hi,
Nice stats! I had similar test with the woodcutters placement some releases ago.
I think tostill possible to count out how much space need for a countinous working. As like at the farms and vineyars.(15-9)
we know that the woodcutters can walk 10tiles from the house's entrance. This means 200tiles around the wcutter but minues 6 tiles(house) and minus the roads and objects and minus the blocked tiles by the ojects. etc...

I dont know how the tress growingtime is nowadays.

Of course these line system could be very effective as like at the farms where the farmers "help" eacother.

[Tiank]

I dont know how the tress growingtime is nowadays.

It takes 10 minutes to fully grow a tree

[The_King]

I have new results. I did a comprehensive simulation of how many tiles does 1 woodcutter need to work efficiently. The results are interesting (see table and pictures below). The maximum size of 21x20 was chosen because it provides the woodcutter with the maximum possible walking distance in all directions. Woodcutters can walk 10 tiles to work.

Results:
- A free open plantation area is not optimum for 1 woodcutter. There is a particular size (11x9) where he works the fastest. Larger or smaller areas will reduce efficiency.
- A very interesting option is to have 9x8 area with the woodcutter on the corner. This produces 88 trees which is only 14 less than what 11x9 produces.

[Krom]

Wow, these are very interesting results! Has to do with walk distance it seems.

[Ben]

Indeed this is quite helpful. I wanted to do something like this for some time but never got around to it

[TheodorKarlsruhe]

Thanks for the reply Krom.

I did a test with 12 players. The number of the player shows the spacing between the woodcutters. The woodcutters had absolutely free space to plant trees everywhere around them with no other buildings in the way up to a distance of 9 tiles.

I found that it makes no difference whether you have 1 space between the woodcutters or more; the production is the same! They produced an average of 180 tree trunks in 120 minutes. In fact, I observed that if you have more than 4 space between the woodcutters, the average trunks in the storehouse after 120 minutes was around 177-178 - although I think that is just because the woodcutters had to walk longer distance to the Inn to eat food.

I will do more tests with restricting the planting area for the woodcutters by making buildings around them so they have less space to plant trees. Lets see how the production varies with spacing then.

Great work, that helps us, I had the same question all time with woodcutters. Go on with your tests and give us information

[Locke]

thanks for the advice. I will make good use of it, I'm addicted to optimization. lol